


Conditional Love

by Pholo



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Juno has certain expectations about relationships that aren't healthy, Other, RECOVERY IS NONLINEAR LADS, Trauma, and he and Peter have a sit-down about it, fields, past verbal abuse (discussed) and past physical abuse (heavily implied), some blood at the beginning, the Montanan in me is always like WHERE IS THE GRASS! PUT THEM IN GRASS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24585298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pholo/pseuds/Pholo
Summary: “What do you want, Juno?”Juno’s whole body tenses.“I want—” His hands flex at his sides, then become fists. “God dammit, I want you to be angry at me, all right?”Peter frowns. “Iamangry at you, Juno.”Juno pivots to face him. “Not really! Not like—that’s not—I need you to—” He gestures wildly at the world around them. “To yell at me! To scream! To—to…”Peter remembers the look on Juno’s face when he woke up. He says, barely above the wind, “Juno. You know I’d never…”“I know!” Juno snaps. He squares his shoulders—and then all at once the tension drains from him like a popped balloon. His arms go limp.“…I know,” he says.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 47
Kudos: 504





	Conditional Love

**Author's Note:**

> Please make sure to check the tags before you read this one, since it's all about Juno's reaction to past abuse!
> 
> I've wanted to write a Juno fic with this premise ever since I heard [The Narcissist Cookbook's "Conditional Love."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgmYCvw8rq8) (The Narcissist Cookbook is AMAZING, by the way! If you want a lighter song from them, I dare you to check out ["Sugar in My Coffee"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGFS_UiyA5o) or ["Ghost Stories"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEC_f8SkUJs)). So the like...heart and through line of this fic really comes from that song!
> 
> UPDATE: HECATE_MIST MADE AN AMAZING PODFIC!! You can listen to that [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24631666) THANK YOU HECATE! <3

Afterward, Peter doesn’t let go of Juno’s hand. 

That awful chemical smell fills the room like a storm cloud. When Peter refused to leave and shower, Vespa forced him to wash his hands and arms at the med bay basin. Flecks of red still discolor the skin under his fingernails. It’s easier not to pick at them when his fingers are tangled between Juno’s.

Peter’s arms feel sticky with the memory of Juno’s blood. He stares at Juno’s lax face. His lips are parted slightly, and Peter latches onto the tiny whistle of air as his bandaged chest moves up and down. 

The world beyond Juno’s bedside is a fog bank. Peter is vaguely aware of Rita where she sits asleep beside him on her chair, her head lolled onto Peter’s side (she’s not nearly tall enough to reach his shoulder). The stream she set up to distract them putters on for an audience of zero, the pad caught between Rita’s limp hands. Peter knows he should reach over and turn off the stream—put the pad on the side table. But he doesn't have the strength. He’s too focused on the heat of Juno’s hand around his, and the quiet miracle of his breath. 

Peter doesn’t know how much longer he sits there, Rita his left tether and Juno his right. He knows the first-aid blanket over his and Rita’s shoulders starts to feel heavier and heavier. A few times Juno seems to stir, only to settle back against the cot. Peter’s focus slips from Juno’s hand to a spot of blood on the floor to the wrinkled sheets over Juno’s torso. He nods off once, but only for a few moments; his head teeters sideways, and he snaps awake. 

At last Juno’s fingers twitch around Nureyev’s. Peter feels the muscles of his arm move with his hand as Juno rolls his shoulder, then stiffens with pain.

“Juno?” Peter asks.

Juno squeezes Peter’s hand. He crunches his face down against his gurney pillow, then turns enough to see Peter past the fabric. His whole upper body hitches. “Peter…oh god…”

Peter’s throat twists up. From the moment Jet entered the ship, Juno’s limp body cradled to his chest; to Vespa’s barked orders as Juno bled and bled and bled onto his med bay cot; to the hours after, as he and Rita sat vigil at Juno’s bedside—

Peter never cried. Not once, the whole time. He doesn’t mean to, but he cries now. 

“It’s all right,” he reassures, maybe to convince himself more than Juno. He uses his free hand to take off his glasses, then scrubs at his eyes. “You’re still here.”

“I’m so sorry,” Juno says, voice hoarse and so, so small. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—I didn’t _think—_ ”

“It’s all right.”

“No—I told you I wouldn’t sacrifice myself like that anymore and I still—” He makes a broken noise. He covers his face with his hand, the fingers arched with tension. “I fucked up. I fucked up, Nureyev—”

“Juno. You listen to me.” Selfishly, Peter doesn’t want to share this moment with Rita yet; he takes care not to dislodge her from his side as he leans closer to Juno’s gurney. “You’ve come so far, darling. I’ve been privileged enough to accompany you on that journey, so I know it. I’ve seen it.” He’s had a long time to think about what to say to Juno once he woke up. He lifts their joined hands up to his lips—lets the words gust over their skin, wobbly with tears: “I don’t expect you to get this right every time. There are bound to be moments when you fall back on old habits. It doesn’t change how much you’ve grown. It doesn’t change how…” he kisses Juno’s hand. “How _proud_ I am of you.”

The hand on Juno’s face becomes a fist, which he lowers back to his side. He shakes his head against the pillow.

“How,” he says. He’s started to cry. “Dammit. How the _hell_ aren’t you…”

It’s then that Rita starts to shift against Nureyev’s side. She’s awake before Peter can formulate a response—and then their conversation is lost amidst her relief and delight.

Peter has done something wrong, and he doesn’t know what.

Ever since Juno woke up, he’s been…different. When Peter comes to visit the med bay, he never wants to talk. What words Peter does coax out of him are harsh and clipped.

It feels familiar to Peter, and for a while he can’t place the reason. Then Juno shrugs a hand off his shoulder, and the sense memory flings Peter back to that awful bunker underground, the day Peter offered up his past.

This was the way Juno behaved when he was trapped, and scared, and didn’t trust him. 

“I can’t help you with this unless you talk to me,” Peter says, at a loss. He’s sat on the edge of Juno’s gurney, hands braced along the cot’s edge. He looks to the head of the bed for guidance, but Juno has turned his face away.

“Yeah,” Juno says to the wall. “Because I’m sure I could get some stellar advice from the guy who’s made a career out of running away from his problems.”

Peter’s grip tightens around the cot. Juno’s never thrown his past back at him like that. He can feel a door close somewhere in his chest. “That’s not fair.”

“How? It’s true. You can’t fix me. You can’t even fix yourself.”

“I never said I could.”

“Then what’s the point?” Juno moves onto his side. “Just let me sleep, Nureyev. I’m fine.”

Peter shuffles his fingers along the edge of the bed; he wrestles down the mental hand that wants to file away his hurt. 

His _real_ hands want to grab Juno by the shoulders and shake him. To demand to know what he’s done to lose Juno’s trust.

Instead he says, 

“When you’re ready to be civil about this, I’ll be here.”

Then he leaves. 

The tension only builds between them over the next few days. They’re like a cord pulled taut; each time Juno pushes him away Peter can feel another string snap.

He’s at a loss. Peter’s not good at this sort of thing at the best of times. It’s true that he’s taught himself to run away from conflict. Juno, meanwhile, seems determined to stew in it—silent, stoic, and bleeding tension like an anxious teabag. 

Peter tries to remind himself not to take Juno’s treatment too personally. He knows Juno enough to recognize his old penchant for self-sabotage. This is likely less about Juno punishing Peter and more about Juno punishing himself.

The fact doesn’t make Peter feel any less useless and afraid.

“I want to help him through this, but he won’t _let me,_ ” Peter tells Rita, the two of them leant up against her bed. There’s a bracelet kit between them, full of beads and string, along with a bag of chips. It feels wrong to ask, but Peter’s out of options: “Can you tell me what you did? When he was like this?”

Rita nibbles around the edge of a chip, like she’s trying to sculpt it with her teeth. “Oh, I tried all sorts of things. It depends how _bad_ he’s got, really. Like sometimes I could snap him out of it with a stream night or somethin’, with all his favorite snacks and stuff, but when he got BAD there was nothin’ I could do.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Well, nothin’ besides waitin’ for him, I mean. Leavin’ him cute lil’ notes and sayin’ good mornin’ when I came to work and g’night when I left and just…bein’ there.” She shrugs. “I showed him I was gonna stay, and he’d always come around. Just took a while sometimes.”

Peter selects another bead from the kit—something blue and shiny. “And…How often did Juno ‘get bad?’”

“Eh. Once every couple months? Haven’t seen him act like this since before the bots from Oldtown, though.”

_Every couple months._ Peter’s fingers slip a little as he attempts to weave his string through the next bead.

_How did you hold on?_ He wants to ask. _How could you be there for him for so many years, when he pushed you away over and over?_

But he keeps his mouth shut. It feels selfish, to be scared for the future. Juno’s the one who’s hurt right now, not Peter. Peter wants to support Juno. He _wants_ to do this.

So why does his chest feel like a sinkhole?

Rita seems to sense his distress. She plants her hand on his shoulder. “It’s hard. But you ain’t alone, you know,” she tells him. “Your good pal Rita’s here to help!”

Peter feels his shoulders droop a bit under Rita’s hand. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

Rita makes an affirmative noise. She offers him the chips. 

Peter studies them. He sighs, accepts the bag, and wrenches out a whole handful.

Peter wakes to a sharp gasp.

In the many years spent between hotel rooms, Peter always kept an unsheathed knife on his bedside table. He reaches out now on muscle memory—but he only feels a hair tie, his glasses, and the edge of a lamp. The confusion passes as Peter takes stock of the room. 

Right. His and Juno’s bedroom. Peter doesn’t keep a knife on the side table anymore, like Juno doesn’t keep a blaster under the bed. He looks over, and Juno’s curled up tight against the wall, the blankets kicked down to his feet. The edge of his bandage peeks out behind the neck of his sleep shirt. There’s a faint glow from the porthole—they’ve parked on a random backwater planet to conserve fuel while they plan their next move—and pre-dawn light catches the corner of his wide, wide eye.

Peter can’t move. Juno has never looked at him like that before—like he’s a bomb rigged to explode. 

“Juno,” Peter croaks out.

It breaks the spell. Frustration slams down over the fear on Juno’s face. He rips the last few blankets from his feet and scrambles off the edge of the bed.

Peter doesn’t think. He throws off the covers and rushes after him.

“Juno! Wait!”

Juno doesn’t stop or slow. Peter follows him out the door. The two pelt down the hall, their shadows thrown wide by the night cycle lights. Peter says, “I know what you’ve been trying to do!”

“Then why—” Juno pauses when they turn a corner, “Are you following me?”

“Because it’s not going to work!”

“I don’t need your psychoanalysis right now, Nureyev!” Juno says, the words underlined by the slap of his footsteps.

“Then what _do_ you need?” They barrel closer and closer to the front of the ship. “What do you _want_ , Juno?”

“Right now? If you could maybe take a hint from the goddamn foot chase—to be away from you!” 

Like a gear caught on a cloth, Peter stutters to a stop. For the first time he registers the cold sting of the floor on his bare feet. He looks on as Juno rounds the final corner to the ship’s entrance. For a few moments he hears the patter of Juno’s footsteps. 

Then he’s too far away, and there’s only silence. 

Peter wanders to one side of the hallway. He rests against the wall for a while. Then his legs fold—slow enough to feel the texture of the wall at his back as he slides down onto the floor. 

Peter stretches out one leg. He bends the other to hook his hands around his ankle. He sits, and waits.

The night lights turn his sleep-shirt blue. From his position on the floor, Peter can make out the upper edge of a porthole—a sliver of dark sky. 

Finally Peter flexes his foot. He props one hand on the ground and stands. Then he starts back down the hall.

When Peter reaches the ship entrance, he finds the door closed. He swipes his hand over the lock-scanner. There’s a hiss as the doors slide open. A burst of cool air ruffles Peter’s nightclothes. He shivers. 

The wind stills, and Peter surveys the outside world. The crew had taken care to land far from any towns or roadways. A dark blue haze nestles over everything, the planet’s suns still too far below the horizon line to shed any real light on the scene. A field sprawls out all around the ship, fronds dark and waist-high. The air smells like salt and ozone. They must be near an ocean.

Peter starts down the ramp. He tests the give of the earth beyond the ramp with one foot. The grass tickles when he presses down, but there’s no pain—no burs or sharp rocks yet. So Peter moves through the field at a careful pace. Tiny clicks follow his progression as bits of dead grass split under his feet.

He’s supposed to hate this sort of thing—the general disorder of the natural world. The way the dirt clings to his toes. At the moment he can’t be bothered to care.

Peter can make out Juno maybe twenty yards away, a rumpled shadow against the dark blue sky. He looks over his shoulder when he hears Peter approach. Peter can make out his expression—regretful, and tired—and then he turns away to stare at the horizon.

Peter stops a few feet behind him. Grass and dirt tickle the soles of his feet. It’s cold enough that Peter wished he’d thought to grab his bathrobe on the way out the door, but not so cold as to make his breath steam.

The two stand there for what feels like a very long time. Peter can hear the wind tussle the grass, and underneath that, a fantom hum—what a cicada would sound like slowed down, maybe. He closes his eyes and lets the sounds push and pull at him like the tide.

Once he’s gathered his strength, he opens them and repeats,

“What do you want, Juno?”

Juno’s whole body tenses. 

“I want—” His hands flex at his sides, then become fists. “God dammit, I want you to be angry at me, all right?”

Peter frowns. “I _am_ angry at you, Juno.”

Juno pivots to face him. “Not really! Not like—that’s not—I need you to—” He gestures wildly at the world around them. “To yell at me! To scream! To—to…”

Peter remembers the look on Juno’s face when he woke up. He says, barely above the wind, “Juno. You know I’d never…”

“I know!” Juno snaps. He squares his shoulders—and then all at once the tension drains from him like a popped balloon. His arms go limp.

“…I know,” he says.

Peter doesn’t know how to respond. Juno doesn’t seem to expect him to. He lowers himself to the ground. He sits cross-legged, defeated and small, the grass tall enough to pass his head.

Peter pauses. Then he takes the last few steps to Juno’s side. The dead stalks crinkle as he settles down beside him.

Juno plucks a piece of grass from the ground. He shifts it back and forth between his fingers so that the frond at the tip twirls like a propeller.

Quiet resumes. The grass goes still as the wind dies down.

“When I was with Diamond,” Juno says finally, “The tension would build and build and build between us, and then we’d just…blow up at each other. It was… _bad_ , obviously, but also kind of a relief? Because it was always quiet after a fight. Long enough for the dust to settle.” He dangles his hands over his crossed ankles. “For a while I could know I was…safe.”

He goes silent again, but Peter knows he’s not done. He shifts enough that his knee brushes Juno’s. Juno grips the grass piece strong enough that his knuckles strain. 

“I um. When we got together I was _so ready_ to not have to worry about…to not have to _fight_ like that. But now I just…” he makes a frustrated noise. “It’s like my brain can’t figure out I’m safe anymore unless there’s a blowup. Now that we don’t—do that. I can’t help but feel…” He stops. The next part comes out shaky: “Nureyev, I’m terrified. All the time. I can’t get it out of my head that we must be—that we’re like a volcano that’s overdue.” He releases the grass; his curled fingers come up to press against his forehead. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I _know_ you wouldn’t. But for some reason I _can’t…”_

“Juno…”

“There aren’t any _rules_ anymore,” he spits out. Peter finds his free hand, and Juno grasps at him like a lifeline. “I don’t know how to tell that I’m doing something right anymore, without—I don’t know how to have the good without the bad. I don’t know how to trust this. _Us._ It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel _earned._ I think…” His shoulders are almost up to his ears now, his head turned down like he’s trying to fold in on himself. “I think I need you to treat me like you don’t love me so I’ll know when you do. I think I need you to make me feel like a waste of space, because then…because then when I don’t feel like that I’ll know that it’s _real.”_

Peter’s not sure what he says at that. It’s swallowed up by a noise he can’t name; something wounded at the back of his throat. He embraces Juno from the side. Juno latches his hands onto the arm around his torso and holds on. He sags under Peter’s grip. 

The shadows around them are thinner now. Light brushes at the very edges of the sky. Juno’s fingers are cold on Peter’s skin.

“You deserve to take up space,” Peter says, quiet but fierce. He’s tall enough that he can rest his chin on Juno’s head. “For no other reason than to be alive. You deserve to feel happy, and safe. You deserve to be loved. It breaks my heart, that someone ever made you believe you had to _earn_ that.”

Juno swallows thickly. “Just…can you tell me something?”

“Anything.”

“What would I have to do, to make you give up on me? So I don’t have to worry I’ll push you over a line I can’t see.”

Peter hugs him tighter. “You won’t. Juno, I’d _tell_ you long before—”

“Please.”

Peter doesn’t want to answer. He’d folded his legs beneath him to get a better angle on their hug, and bits of grass poke at his pajama pants. He can feel dirt on his feet, and the chill air stings his cheeks. 

He tilts his head atop Juno’s. The grip on his arm grounds him.

“If…” he begins slowly. “If you were to react this way…to push me away, and try to hurt me to hurt yourself, and say…” he has to pause to regather his courage. “To say the kinds of things you’ve said to me, this past week. If that were to happen on a regular basis. I don’t…”

He trails off. Peter’s mind wanders to Rita, who spoke so nonchalantly about Juno’s breakdowns. Peter can see her now, armed with a pad and a smile on her face. He pictures years of empty mugs and bags and markers—all the coffee she must have brewed for Juno; all the notes she must have left him; all the streams she must have set up for him, with blankets piled high around the couch and snacks scattered across the coffee table.

What has Peter done over the past _week_ , besides let Juno pull farther and farther away from him?

“I’m sorry,” he croaks. He takes a few quick breaths, but the pressure only builds behind his eyes. “I’m sorry; I don’t think I could…I’m not…I’m not _strong_ enough—”

“Nureyev.” Juno twists out of Peter’s arms. He catches Peter before he can move away; his hands come up to cup his cheeks. “Hey. Honey, no, don’t say that.”

“It’s true! I wish I could be stronger for you, but I—”

“You don’t have to be,” Juno says firmly. His fingers are cold on his face, but somehow his palms are warm. “Look. When you said I didn’t have to earn this—did you mean that?”

Peter feels the first tear on his cheek. “Of course I did.” 

“Then you don’t have to earn this either. Our relationship isn’t conditioned on your ability to just… _take_ whatever I throw at you. I’ve been treating you like shit for the past week and—no, don’t look at me like that, you know I have! That wasn’t fair to you, and I’m—dammit, I’m _so sorry._ ” Real sunlight has started to creep over the horizon line, soft and golden. It penetrates the tangle of grass in places, casting criss-crossed lines over Juno’s hair and face. Juno combs the tears from Peter’s cheeks with his thumbs. “This…this will probably happen again, honestly, where I break down. And when it does, I need to find a way to react that doesn’t hurt you. I’m _going_ to find a way. Okay?”

Peter doesn’t know what to say to that. The wind ripples the grass again, and a few strands of hair fall over Peter’s face. He reaches up to cover the hand on his right cheek, then turns his head to kiss Juno’s pulse point. 

Juno sniffs. He looks down at the ground, then back up at Peter. 

“Sweetheart…” he says. He doesn’t go on. He doesn’t need to. 

Peter smiles at him. He wipes at his face. Grass tufts drift by, caught on the updraft. Peter’s legs have started to ache. He doesn’t care.

“Do you remember how we would talk, when we first came onboard?” Peter asks finally. “When you would come to my room, or I would come to yours—almost every night—and we would sit together and be vulnerable with each other?”

The hand not caught by Peter’s slides down to grasp Peter’s shoulder. “You think we should try that again?”

“Do you think it would help?”

Juno takes a deep breath. “Maybe. If you’d be up for that. Being able to…check up with you might help me get out of my head a bit.” He plucks a piece of grass from Peter’s shirt. “I also, um…”

He mumbles the rest. Peter strains to hear. “What was that?”

In a rush Juno says, “I might also want to try therapy. I mean, I _did_ try—I had a counselor once and when I left the force Rita convinced me to give CBT a shot and uh, maybe the therapist was shit or maybe I wasn’t ready, but I gave up after a while.” A pause. “I’d like to try again, though. Or, hell, I wouldn’t _like_ to. But I think I need to.”

Peter takes both of Juno’s hands. He says, “I’m sure someone out there will suit you. You have a whole galaxy to choose from.” He lets one hand drop, then begins to rub the other between his own. “You’re so _cold_ , Juno. And—Rita has encrypted our other calls well enough. I have no doubt she could find a way to keep our location hidden…”

“It could get pricy. If they’re any good, I wouldn’t want to scam ‘em.”

Peter doesn’t look up from Juno’s hand. The blue polish on Juno’s nails has started to chip. “I’m sure some rates are more manageable than others. We’d find a way to pay, regardless. That hairpin I picked up on our last heist should cover a year’s worth of sessions at least.”

Juno bops Peter on the arm. “I knew your pockets were bigger when we left!” he accuses. “Buddy told us not to steal any of the stuff from his bedroom, you—” 

He has to stop to laugh. It’s been far too long since Peter last heard that sound. He feels his smile grow wider.

The laughter trails off. Juno looks at Peter—so fondly that Peter swears his heart stops.

“You hopeless magpie of a man,” Juno finishes at last. “I love you so much.”

Heat rushes to Peter’s cheeks. He’s not sure how Juno still has the power to reduce him to a speechless pile of mush. Somehow the novelty never wears off. 

Peter’s not sure which of them moves first, but then there’s worn fabric under Peter’s hands. They resume their hug. Juno still smells like sleep, and the ship, and their bed.

“I love you too,” Peter says. He holds his palms flat against Juno’s back. “What do you say we talk more over breakfast?”

Juno snorts. “It’s probably 4am ship time, Nureyev.”

“And Juno Steel famously adheres to ship day-night cycles,” Peter teases. “I’ll make eggs.”

“Not unless there’s a fire department on hand, you won’t. _I’ll_ make the eggs. You can keep me company.”

More dead grass snaps as the two make to stand. The sun washes over them, unhindered once they pass the shadows of the grass. Peter can feel the heat on his skin. He shudders.

Juno takes Peter’s wrist. He looks beautiful like this, sleepwear ruffled and grass-spotted, the edges of him dyed gold by the sunrise.

“Hey. Thank you,” Juno says, softly and with fervor. He kisses Peter on the cheek. “Let’s get you out of the cold.”

**Author's Note:**

> Me 24/7 @ the Carte Blanche crew: BINCH we gotta get you some GRASS! We gotta get you some THERAPY! We gotta get you some **_BREAKFAST!!!_**
> 
> I'm pretty sure I was subconsciously channelling [chapter four of Onetiredboy's "Four Times Juno Steel Had the Opportunity to Kiss Peter Nureyev (And the One Time He Took It)"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21430555/chapters/52062940) while writing that first scene, so if you haven't read [that fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21430555/chapters/51062251), now's your chance!
> 
> I LOOOOOVE COMMENTS! They 1. totally make my day and 2. water my crops/the random field on a mostly deserted planet I use to force people to communicate!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [Jitterbug-juno.](https://jitterbug-juno.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Conditional Love - Podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24631666) by [Hekatos_Mist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekatos_Mist/pseuds/Hekatos_Mist)




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